The latest review of pay scales in a particular company show

hey - We have 1.3 times their pay. -> here "their pay" refers to development engineers's pay.
Look at the stark parallelism between the comparison.

1.8 times the salary of product development engineers || 1.3 times their salary

In the first answer choice there is a comparison error. whenever quantities by multiplication are related, Usage of than or more is incorrect.

Thus, Salary of marketing officer is 1.3 times (multiplication) the salary of development manager.

You can check this concept if you have Manhattan SC Edn 4 Pg 256 : Numbers in Comparison.

Apples & oranges question as GMAT pill would classify it. keyword is "THAN" What are we comparing? look to the left and right of "THAN" the salary of marketing officers to development engineers that isn't the same thing. so we can rule out A and B.

D has many issues unnecessary use of "having" also we need the word that.

so now we are left with C and E. There is a phrasing issue we need the ratio cos the sentence won't make sense with E.

Hope that helps.

Click kudos +1 if my post helped.

Can we get a nice review of answer choices by one of our in-house Verbal experts here?

Would be happy to throw some Kudos out there!
Cheers!!
J

Hi jlgdr,

Why wait for the experts when we can solve it on our own.

Let’s first understand the structure and meaning of the sentence.

• The latest review of pay scales in a particular company shows
o that marketing officers get paid
• an average of 1.8 times more salary than product development engineers,
o compared to a ratio of 1.3 times ten years ago.


MEANING

• So, the sentence tells us about a review of pay scales in a company that compares the average salary of the marketing officers with the average salary of product development engineers.
• This review shows that the salary of marketing officers is 1.8 times the salary of product development engineers as compared to the ratio of 1.3 times ten years ago.

There are two comparisons going on in this sentence.

Comparison I: The salary of marketing officers is compared to the salary of product development engineers. The ratio is 1.8.
Ten years ago this ratio was 1.3.

Comparison II: The above two ratios are also compared to each other.

Now, let’s move on to the options:


OPTION A

1. It is unidiomatic to say ‘…1.8 times more salary than… ’. The correct idiomatic usage are ‘…1.8 times….’ or ‘…more than… ’.

6 is 3 times 2. Correct
6 is 4 more than 2. Correct
6 is 2 times more than 3. Incorrect

2. In the phrase ‘compared to a ratio of 1.3 times ten years ago’, it is not clear what is the ratio of.

3. In comparison I ‘1.8 times more salary’ is compared to ‘product development engineers’.

The salary of Roger is more than Ron. (salary of Roger is compared to Ron)

The salary of Roger is more than that of Ron. (‘that’ refers to ‘the salary’)

4. In comparison II, ‘an average of 1.8 times more salary’ is compared to ‘a ratio of 1.3 times’.



OPTION B

1. It is unidiomatic to say ‘…1.8 times more salary than… ’. The correct idiomatic usage are ‘…1.8 times….’ or ‘…more than… ’.

2. This option states that review of pay scales shows marketing officers. This does not make sense.

3. In comparison I ‘1.8 times more salary’ is compared to ‘product development engineers’.



OPTION C

Marketing officers get paid 1.8 times the salary of product development engineers. (Logical Comparison)

‘1.8 times the salary’ is compared to ‘1.3 times their salary’. The ratios of the salaries are compared.



OPTION D

1. Singular article ‘a’ cannot be used with plural noun ‘product development engineers’.

2. In comparison II, ‘an average of 1.8 times the salary’ is compared to ‘the ratio of 1.3 times’.

3. This sentence means that marketing officers now possess (having) 1.8 times the salary of product development engineers. This does not make sense. The salary is said to be paid. It cannot be possessed.



OPTION E

1. In the phrase ‘a ratio that compares to 1.3 times’, ‘a ratio’ is compared to ‘1.3 times’.



Hope this helps!
Manyu

P.S.: I hope your kudos are not reserved for experts only.

Wow. Very helpful stuff, I had no idea about the usage of than or more with regards to quantities by multiplication. Thanks!

I think the easiest way to solve this tangle is a two-step jump.

1. B and D: Eliminate these two choices for not using the relative pronoun 'that' required to be used in reported speeches to connect the main clause with what is being reported.

2. Among A, C, and D: look at parallelism now. An equally parallel '1.3 times the salary' in the second arm should match '1.8 times the salary' in the first arm. If you fail to mention the salary part, the meaning may get distorted by wrong comparisons. Only C does the comparison unequivocally. In addition, A distorts the meaning by using the wrong comparator 'more than'.

First of all try to answer this by applying 3-2 split and identifying the first visible error. You don't compare by saying "something is x times greater than", rather "something is x times some value". This very idiom eliminates A and B. No need to look at any other aspect.

D has verb error. No main verb present.

E has the issue with proper comparison. Ratio does not compare itself, someone compares it. Hence E is also eliminated.

Leaves C as the only option. That's your answer.

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